Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  Slade threw back his head and folded his arms; there was a kind of pride, not braggadocio, in his attitude. "Go ahead," he said quietly. "Go ahead and get it done."

  There was no Raw im his gameness; he expected no mercy and asked for none; but there was a barely perceptible quiver to Slade's mouth, and beneath the tranquillity of his voice something like a broken breath of sound, a tremor more felt than heard; and it disturbed Marvin. He looked at Slade again gravely; then turned to the officers.

  "In spite of what I've been saying, I did mean to take this man home for trial, and I hoped to see him hanged, as did three of my friends here. I think they'll back me up in what I'm going to do about it now."

  He cleared his throat, then went on: "Well, we've got him down, and we aren't going to do what we intended. He's lost his ship and everything else, thank God; and I guess it'll be enough for us if he goes back to England with you. If any of you like him, I guess you'd better keep him there, because if he's ever taken by any American ship, or sets foot on American soil again, it won't be good for him. I guess it's enough for us, if we ever think of him again, to know he's in England with nothing but his reputation as a traitor to make a living out of."

  Slade looked at him incredulously. "You mean you're lettmg me got"

  Marvin laughed. "If that's what you call it," he said, then spoke once more to the officers. "Now you can see why it's awkward. For the

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  reason I've told you, I can't take you as prisoners, nor do I propose to leave this vessel while it hides the specie of this man you call captain. It's hidden somewhere in his cabin, for there's nowhere else he'd dare to hide it. Therefore, gentlemen, I'll have to ask you to get yourself as far into the bows of this vessel as you can get. I'm going to put a match to your magazine and blow up the cabin and the specie with it." He turned to Steven. "Break open a powder keg and lay a train to it."

  A stocky, red-faced officer coughed nervously and addressed him in the thick speech of Devon. "The specie kegs," he said, "are stacked in the rudder case, high up."

  Sladelaughed and tossed his empty pannikin over the side.

  Marvin nodded to Steven, who turned and hurried below. He considered Corunna then. "I think," he said, "it's safe enough in case you wish to remain aboard this vessel. I'll have to set her afire, to make sure she's destroyed, but the guns you've heard will bring out the sloop-of-war to see what's happened. She'll be out pretty soon. But even if she doesn't come out, you're close enough to shore to get there with no trouble."

  She looked at him, her knuckles pressed against her lips.

  He hesitated. "In case you wish to be taken off - "

  She only continued to look at him, but he thought her eyes were fierce with disdain.

  "She will go," Victorine said. "Put her in your boat and take her to your ship."

  "But if she doesn't want to - " he began.

  Victorine pushed her red and furious face almost against his. "She will got" she screamed. "Put her in the boat and take her to your shipl"

  Steven came through the hatch with a specie keg in his arms. "Seventeen of 'eml" he said. He thumped it down on the deck.

  Marvin smiled and looked back toward Guia Head.

  "Put 'em in the boat," he said. "The sloop-of-war's coming down on us. Throw over the guns and set this vessel afire in the bows."

  But it was the Indian who came to Corunna and Victorine. "Now, ladies," he said, "we're going home."

  The True-Hearted Yankee, under a cloud of sail, bore to the northwestward past the rounded peak of Castello Branco Point. Marvin, at her taffrail, watched the sloop-of-war haul her wind toward the burning brig; then spoke to Newton, who stood beside him, eyeing him with proud affection. "I want Argandeaul" he said. "I saw him

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  run forward, when we came aboard, and jump down the fore hatch. He's got no business going below at a time like this. Send for him. Tell him I want him."

  It was a full five minutes later when Newton returned, pushing Argandeau before him. At the mainmast Argandeau balked and crouched, like a startled fawn, casting timid glances at the cabin hatch. Marvin stared at him, puzzled. "Where've you been?" he demanded. "What ails you?"

  Argandeau wiped his forehead with his sleeve and spoke humbly in a thick voice:

  "Captain. I am not gay!"

  "Aren't you? What of it?"

  "Captain, I ask permission to spend all daylight hours for the length of this voyage in the hold."

  "What?"

  Argandeau shivered. "Captain, you have heard me speak of rabbits, perhaps too much and too lightly. The one called Victorine was formerly pleasanter to the eye, as you will believe, since it could not be otherwise. At the time I speak of she was an acquaintance of mine."

  "Was she?" Marvin said calmly. "Well, I can't have women interfering with work aboard this vessel. House the long guns and make all snug. A little ordinary caution, now, will get all of us safely back to France and fortune."

  "All of us?" Argandeau turned a tragic face upon him. "A little ordinary caution? It is in that manner that one speaks when it is not himself who is in danger, but only a friend! My captain, you would not be so philosophic if you had ever been loved by a volcano, and even made the miscalculation of being wedded to one! I would not admit it publicly, but it appears that one of my marriages was with this artilleristl This great grenadier! This Stromboli of a Victorinel It is my simple confession I am not perfect and I am at your

  mercy."

  "How is it possible for Argandeau to fear a woman?" Marvin asked. Then he quoted almost the selfsame words that Argandeau had once said to him on the deck of the Olive Branch. "You in France, you are subtler You hunt always for the heartstrings of a woman, and you play softly on them, so that she is moved to do your will."

  "Ah, my Godl My Godl" Argandeau whispered. "I spoke as a Frenchman! I am an American now a true-hearted Yankee. I know nothing of women, and wish to know less!"

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  Marvin stared hard at him. "All right, stay below during daylight unless you're needed," he said, and went below himself.

  Marvin rapped on the door of the captain's cabin. Victorine opened it, knitting needles in her hand; and Marvin, looking beyond her, saw Corunna rise to stand with her back against the table, facing him.

  "Well," he said gravely, "we're glad to have you aboard, you and your friend." He glanced at Victorine. "I think I've seen you before. The knitting looks familiar."

  "And why not?" Victorine demanded. "I have carried these needles for protection since the good God knows when, knitting all day, and at night pulling out what I have knitted."

  "For protection?" Marvin asked.

  Victorine wagged her head. "Hah, but you were rightl I knew you were right when you spoke rudely to this cabbage here" she stabbed a needle toward Corunna "in Paris."

  "Yes," he said, "it was in Paris that I saw you."

  "As I say," Victorine continued placidly, "I knowl Me, I knowl What we females need is not compliments, but truth. Of my husbands, the most successful with me spoke truthfully to me; and I, to keep him quiet, pretended to an adoration for him that was somewhat more than I felt. Thus we adored each otherl Ah, yes, he was the best of them alll"

  Marvin glanced quickly at Corunna, but she was staring through

  the stern windows with hard, uninterested eyes at the towering blueI

  cone of Fayal.

  'Well," he said awkwardly, "if there's anything you need, either of you, you'll let us know. I thought you might like I just thought I'd say that Steven found your sea trunk aboard the Blue Swan. It's here. I'll send it down to you. This is the captain's cabin you're in, but you won't need to think of that I mean, I'll steer clear of enemy vessels while you're well, I only mean you're welcome to the cabin."

  She looked at him, and in her look there was disdain and anger still. It seemed that somehow he had been guilty of something, or that Corunna thought so; and he fe
lt, as he had felt before, that he could never please her.

  He moved to the door, then, and fumbled with the latch. "Well," he said, "it may be a month before we can set you ashore. We can't control these winter winds. You may find it hard that is, if you'd rather not have me if you'd rather not speak to me, Corunna, your

  your lady here could bring me messages about anything you'd like I

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  us to do like us to do for your comfort." He pressed the latch and hesitated, looking across the cabin at them. Victorine slid a sidelong glance at him above her knitting, but Corunna, examining the elbow of her Chinese jacket, might already have forgotten his existence. So he went out.

  From Fayal the True-Hearted Yankee bore up to the northeastward. For two days Marvin, busy with the discipline and welfare of his crew, caught only fleeting glimpses of his passengers; for they, it seemed, came to the deck when he was in his own small berth, or working with his charts.

  He had the thought, late on the second day, that they might find it easier if he should let them hear, as if by accident, that he would keep the deck at night, leaving it free for them at earlier hours. With the thought, he went on deck to find the brig rushing along a plain of black and silver beneath a moon so brilliant that it had the look of being closer than the distant mastheads. By its light he saw that his thought to remain in his cabin by day and to emerge only when darkness fell would not please Corunna; that here, once more, he could not please her.

  In the moonlight he saw three figures leaning against the rail under the swelling main course. Two were women; and to his astonishment the third was Argandeau an Argandeau who gestured with fearless grace toward the far horizon, and murmured with such fervor that his words poured from him with the sweet cadence of an endless lullaby.

  "They must have seen me," Marvin sighed; for Argandeau's murmurings were suddenly silent; and after that the female figures, moving to the clack of knitting needles, left Argandeau and vanished down the hatch. Argandeau came to him, then, to stare with painful innocence at the moon.

  "Wasn't it you," Marvin asked him, "who begged permission to stay in the hold?"

  "Not forever!" Argandeau said reproachfully. "Did you hear me use the word 'forever'? Is it not necessary for a human being to come up at night?"

  He moved closer to Marvin. "I must tell youl A strange thing happenedl Strange, yet freighted with relief and consolation. Last night I was yonder, and suddenly she was behind me, full of recognition. Well, I took upon myself the calm of Socrates before the hemlock! A ship is a place where a man cannot run limitlessly with Stromboli in eruption pursuing on felt slippers at his heelsl My friend, you

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  await my narrative of the crisisl I will not keep you in suspense! My poor captain, Stromboli is extinct!"

  Marvin looked at him. "Extinct?"

  "Extinct! My once volcano! Flat as a dead fishl It can scarcely be credited, but when she saw me, she laughed; and what do you think she said to your pigeon? She said, 'It's that old Argandeau, an old rascal I used to knowl' That was all she said of me; and we had a nice conversation, the three of us. You heard me, no? We spoke of the ocean and the moon and where is the best cooking in Paris. It's incredible! Even as I talk I must pinch myself and pinch myself!"

  He took his cheek between his thumb and forefinger, and wrenched it. When he had released himself, he said carelessly, "Your pigeon does not talk much any more. I think she is sad."

  "My pigeon!" Marvin exclaimed. "Don't call her that againl She's hated me a long while."

  Argandeau rested his cheek on his hand and stared at the moon. "M'ml I think you have something on your mind. I think so. I think I have had the same thought. In the hold these past two days, sitting in a corner of the carpenter shop and also concealed in the bread locker, I have been able to give more than a little thought to the matter. I have wondered whether that rabbit is Mrs. Slade. I have had the thought also that it is something she will never freely tell you; also that a sure way to find out nothing at all about it is to ask her. The temptation to ask will return and return, stronger one year than another, no doubt; but I would not ask. No, I would not ask."

  "No," Marvin said uncertainly. "Well, I won't have - "

  "No," Argandeau repeated. "Nol As for hating you, I think so. Yes indeed, I think she hates you; and why not? I ask you why not? For one thing, you have proved yourself right and her to be wrong; but that would not be the chief reason for her hate. No. The chief reason would be that it was not you who took her from the Blue Swan. I tell you there will be times when that hatred will be remembered at moments that will make you leap with surprise, like a fish "

  "I did take her from the Blue Swan."

  "No, that is not correct. That volcano that extinct volcano she made you take her."

  Marvin struck the bulwark with the fiat of his hand. "How the devil did I know? How should I have known what she wanted?"

  "And there you arel" Argandeau cried. "That is what she hates you most fort For not knowing! For not knowing she wasn't Mrs.

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  SladelFor that, and because she had found out she was wrong about everything!"

  Argandeau looked at him pityingly. "You think, perhaps, a woman will run to a man and tell him she has been wrong? That would be a fine beginning, eh? for a woman to say she has been wrong, so that forever after he would be able to say to her, 'Hahl You were wrong about that thing, back there fifty years ago; therefore you are wrong about this matter here and nowl' A wonderful affair, that, since it would reappear all the rest of your lives, causing bitter words and bitterer thoughts! No, not It is too much to expect a woman to admit being wrong at the start, when all women know that to make such an admission is like placing a club in the man's hands a club with which he will surely thump her Piff like that, when he is at a loss what else to dol Yes, yes, my good friend; you must expect her to hate you yes, and bitterly! You must understand thisl It's never the pigeon that is wrong; it's you you entirely!"

  Marvin shook his head, puzzled. "If she hates me, she hates me. How can I help it if she hates me? You don't think, do you, that I want her to hate me? I'm not anxious to have anyone hate me, least of all that least of all well, I don't like to have her hate me. I never hated her. The fact is well, the fact is I never could help liking her. Even when we were children in Arundel."

  He looked astern, over the dark waters, as though he hoped to see, far off, the little town beside the narrow river.

  "I'm glad for her sake," he went on, "she didn't marry Slade. I never thought she would. But I don't know what to do what to do about it, or about her I don't know at all. I can't help having been right; I don't feel like taking any blame for that. She has been wrong all this time, and there's no other way to look at it."

  Argandeau gazed long and steadily at the moon. "No," he said dreamily. "Nol Of course there is no other way to look at it. No other way at all. Nor can you ever change her hate for you; of course notl Still, that pigeon is a guest on your vessel. She is in your charge, even; so you might, perhaps it is a small thought, this one, and of no value, doubtless you might do what you could to make her feel better."

  "Why," Marvin said simply, "I would! I'd be glad to! But I don't know howl She takes no pleasure in anything I do or sayl"

  Argandeau raised his eyebrows, a moon-struck picture of exasperation. "But there is nothing easierl Go to her and tell herl"

  "Tell her what?" Marvin demanded, equally exasperated.

  "Tell her you've been wrong."

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  Marvin just looked at him; and from his look, it was clear to Argandeau that Marvin thought him off his head.

  Yet Argandeau's words recurred to Marvin in his bed that night, and he thought about them. Indeed, he lay awake, turning them this way and that in his mind; and at last he struck upon a matter concerning which he might have been at least a little wrong. He had, as he recalled it, told Corunna she wo
uld never make a proper captain of a ship. That, he admitted, might have been an overstatement; for certainly she could come as near being a proper captain as any woman could. His words, perhaps, had been a little rough, tinged with incaution. Hazily, before he slept, he knew he owed it to Corunna to explain those words.

  Thus it happened that at noon the following day it was the captain himself, instead of Newton, who came to the cabin for the log book. He hesitated before the cabin door, and almost turned away; but at length he cleared his throat and knocked; then dropped his hat and fumbled for it on the floor, and was still groping for it when Victorine's voice called, "Entrez!" When he had found his hat, he coughed and knocked again and immediately entered.

  They were at the table, both of them, engaged in unraveling the last product of Victorine's needles, and at the sight of him they stopped and stared.

  "I wanted to see that is you know, the log book," he said with an air of choosing his words carefully.

  The two women looked at each other and then back at Marvin; and it was Victorine who took the log book from the rack beside the door and placed it in his hands.

  He took it gratefully. "I didn't want to disturb you," he said. "I only thought I'd get the log book." He coughed, examined the cover of the book with apparent surprise; and then, with a sudden desperation, he said to Corunna, "I've been thinking things over, and I thought I'd tell you I believe I've been wrong about about - "

  She looked at him strangely. "Wrong?" she asked. "About what?"

  Unexpectedly to himself, as if by a God-given inspiration, he said the right thing. He heard himself saying, "About everything!"

  At that she seemed to change before his eyes. No sailor woman stood there, hard and hating him, but a soft-eyed girl, drooping, gentle and on the point of tears.

  "Ah, not" she said in a shaking voice. "You were never wrong about anything, nor ever will bet"

  Beneath the noonday sun the True-Hearted Yankee sliced, close

  aN~ aH]

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